Each Sunday, Pitchfork takes an in-depth look at a significant album from the past, and any record not in our archives is eligible. Today, we revisit Ja Rule’s fleeting moment in the sun, a chart-topping 2001 album whose magnetic pop crossovers foreshadowed the future of melodic rap.
It was 2002 and Ja Rule was irate. DMX had recently appeared on DJ Kay Slay’s show to accuse Ja of biting his style; 50 Cent was taking to diss tracks and interviews to castigate Ja for imitating 2Pac. He’d had as much as he could take. He called into Hot 97. “Everybody wants to make comparisons to Pac and X and me,” Ja shouted through the receiver and across the airwaves. “Y’all niggas wanna see Pac come back? … It’s here, nigga. It’s here.”
It wasn’t. Because Ja Rule might seem like a relic of 2000s hip-hop whose career-ending beef with 50 Cent should probably be above the fold on his Wikipedia page, it’s easy to dismiss this bravado as posturing, a snarling burst of delusion from the co-founder of Fyre Festival. But in 2002, Ja tried with all his might to fashion himself as Pac’s rightful heir. Now the comparison is ridiculous, an example of Ja’s boundless self-regard, but back then it didn’t seem completely implausible that Ja could one day have an impact akin to Pac. It wasn’t just the bandana looped around his head, the manicured mustache, or the way he stretched his vowels and spit from the pit of his stomach. It was how his bluster contorted into anguish, how his arm-wheeling freneticism made him seem 10 feet tall, how he packaged brazen attitude into radio-ready rap hits. Emboldened by a string of chart-topping singles and a pair of No. 1 albums, Ja was on the Hot 97 airwaves that day battling for position as the biggest rapper on the planet, trying to bring down anyone who stood in his way. The Greek tragedy of Ja was already in motion.
A year earlier, from the height of his cultural ubiquity, Ja released his third studio album, Pain Is Love. His beefs were still inconsequential; his label, Murder Inc., was still a reputable force in mainstream music. Like his hero Pac, he leveraged his success to start acting, landing a supporting role in the first installment of the soon-to-be commercial behemoth Fast and the Furious franchise. His culture-dominating duet with Jennifer Lopez, “I’m Real,” made him such a household name that MTV, after 9/11, asked him to share his thoughts on the tragic events—a moment that Dave Chappelle memorialized for its absurdity.
Ja achieved massive popularity in part because his music appealed to female audiences, a demographic often ignored in ’90s and early ’00s hip-hop. His R&B-styled crossovers influenced his identity as a “sensitive thug,” someone whose loverman persona counteracted his hard-edged street side. Ja was one of the rare A-list rappers whose songs could pop off at a bar mitzvah or a block party, whose work elided clear distinctions between hip-hop, R&B, and pop. And considering the imminent Auto-Tune era and melodic rap boom, Ja’s stylistic choices now feel prescient, a forward-thinking maneuver that soon became standard across mainstream hip-hop. But back then 50 Cent and hip-hop writ large taunted Ja for his doe-eyed love songs, and he chafed against this archetype, not knowing it would help define rap for the next 20 years.
Ja, born Jeffrey Atkins, knew how to scrap for success. An up-and-coming rapper from Hollis, Queens, he got his first big break when, in 1994, he formed a trio named Cash Money Click with local rappers Chris Black and 0-1. Their first single, “Get Tha Fortune,” was produced by fellow Hollis native Irv Gotti, a DJ turned industry everyman with close connections to Jay-Z and DMX. Gotti helped Cash Money Click secure a one-album deal with TVT Records, and they made waves when their video “4 My Click” appeared on Yo! MTV Raps, catching the attention of Def Jam executive Lyor Cohen, who was reportedly struck by Ja’s tenacity. Rocking a thick down coat and a backward flat-brim, Ja hurtles himself across the frame, his boisterous, wide-eyed bars jolting the ambling song to life. It’s no wonder Cohen saw a star; Ja, the smallest guy in the video, carried himself like he already was one.
After Cash Money Click collapsed, Gotti brought Ja Rule to Mulford Gardens to meet DMX. The two freestyled for each other, Ja with his melodic barks and DMX with his mouth wired shut from a broken jaw. Gotti watched a mutual respect bloom between them and was eager to link them with an up-and-coming rapper named Jay-Z. The trio began working together soon after meeting, and their competitive spirit made for undeniable chemistry: Take 1998’s “Murdergram,” where Jay-Z’s slick, conversational flow sharpens into a growl, matching DMX’s literal growling and Ja’s gravelly timbre. Even though he’d guided Ja, Jay, and X to solo deals with Def Jam, Gotti sought to formally solidify the trio as a supergroup: Murder Inc., the same name as his new Def Jam imprint. Here were three of the most promising young MCs in the game, each seeking to fill the vacuum Pac and Biggie’s deaths had left in hip-hop. Gotti understood the magnitude of their collaboration: “[They] gonna go in the studio and compete—they all super competitive, which is gonna make the illest records…it would’ve been an immortal album.”
One problem: Jay-Z and DMX didn’t share Gotti’s vision. By 1999, Jay had three successful solo records under his belt, and X was fresh off two No. 1 albums. They didn’t need Murder Inc. like Gotti and Ja did; they were already the two hottest rappers out. “I was the low man on that totem pole,” Ja recalled in a 2020 interview with HipHopDX. “If I would’ve [recorded an album with Jay and X]...everybody would’ve always talked about how I came in on that and every hit record I would’ve made after that would’ve been, ‘Well, it’s because…he’s part of Murder Inc.’” Though his solo career was building momentum—he’d scored guest verses on songs with Nas, Method Man, and LL Cool J—Ja was desperate to prove he was more than a sidekick. In his eyes, as well as Gotti’s, he was a superstar: the East Coast reincarnation of Pac, the prodigal son the world didn’t know was coming.
His debut single, 1999’s “Holla Holla,” didn’t just announce Ja as a star—it shifted the direction of his music. When he turned in his first album, Venni Vetti Vecci, to Def Jam, they gave it back to him with a clear directive: Make a hit. “At the time, I’m just like, ‘What the fuck you talking about? They’re all hits!” Ja told Complex in 2013. “I didn’t [yet] grasp the idea of making a radio record.” Unlike the sinister beats and gritty verses that made up much of Venni Vetti Vecci, “Holla Holla” leaned into Ja’s scratchy singing and knack for crafting raunchy, rugged hooks. In the Hype Williams-directed video, he scours a beach shirtless, surrounded by a swarm of bikini-clad women, sneering into the camera and goofily dancing along a Brazilian boardwalk. The song peaked at No. 35 on the Billboard Hot 100 and guided Venni Vetti Vecci to strong first week sales and, eventually, a platinum plaque.
Though he’d tasted success, Ja remained near the bottom of rap’s star hierarchy, a reality he began to resent. His debut wasn’t critically lauded like Reasonable Doubt, nor did it top the charts like It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot. Instead, as Kris Ex wrote for Rolling Stone at the time, Venni Vetti Vecci—and namely “Holla Holla”—“seemed more like a novelty tune from one of DMX’s buddies than a career-building smash.” Sensing this stigma, Ja knew he had to make music that set him apart. “Holla Holla” provided a template: big hooks, sex appeal, and a little bit of singing. While Jay and X made music for the streets, Ja found ways to integrate his tough-guy persona into pop crossovers. His next two singles, “Between Me & You” and “Put It on Me,” were, as Gotti said, “female friendly-driven…[all] while Ja is still spitting and being that raw nigga.” Both became massive hits, catapulting Ja into a new stratosphere of celebrity.
By 2001, Ja was an inescapable voice in pop music, a frog-throated firecracker who penned indelible hooks and rapped with an almost deranged ferocity. Pain Is Love basks in the spotlight, sprawling with glitzy, gimmicky production and horny punchlines. In a departure from his once menacing street raps, Ja sings or, more accurately, guffaws about thongs, ecstasy, and lavish trips abroad. The album’s lead single, “Livin’ It Up,” captures this spirit, interpolating Stevie Wonder’s “Do I Do” in an ode to excess and luxury. Throughout the song, Ja seems overwhelmed with good fortune, asking, “You think I got time to blow all this dough and do all these shows?” The answer then was a resounding of course not; he was pop’s most in-demand rapper and a budding actor just hitting the peak of his career. And, fittingly, the album’s best as a joyride, like on “Down Ass Bitch,” where Ja groans a string of mimicable lines (“Every thug needs a lady!”) over a glistening guitar lick.
But no song better captures the magic of Ja Rule than the Ashanti-featuring “Always on Time,” Ja’s only No. 1 song as a lead artist. Newly signed to Murder Inc., Ashanti was eager to catch a break; she’d been replaced by Jennifer Lopez as the lead vocalist on “Ain’t It Funny,” which she co-wrote with Ja, and had yet to release an official single of her own. She struck gold with successive features on “Always on Time” and Fat Joe’s “What’s Luv?” (which also features Ja), anointing her as a star who could elevate Ja’s excursions into pop. On “Always on Time,” her airy soprano perfectly compliments his gruff baritone, a back-and-forth formula the pair would fall back on again and again. While still spitting with intensity and fervor, Ja mostly waxes romantic, striking a healthy balance between belligerence and sensitivity. “Always on Time” remains his legacy-defining smash, a song so addictively catchy it’s hard not to wish he’d leaned further into his R&B instincts and away from his 2Pac impersonation.
About that 2Pac impersonation: He samples a Pac song and verse on “So Much Pain” (one of Ja’s best songs, with some of the strongest bars of his career: “I spits razors/Never been a stranger to homicide/My city’s full of tote-slangers and chalk lines”), but his Pac-inspired songs tend to be his weakest. On two Murder Inc. posse cuts, “The Inc.” and “Worldwide Gangsta,” Ja’s writing lacks the imagery and specificity needed to nurture a mafioso identity. When he raps, “Family orientated through guns, drugs, and good relations/Real conversations, we call it real talk/And that shit spreads all the way from L.A. to New York,” the character he’s portraying doesn’t align with the one he inhabits on his more sentimental songs. Pain Is Love fails to find balance between Ja’s conflicting identities, hedging his forays into R&B with constant reminders that he’s still not someone to mess with.
Still, Pain Is Love is Ja’s most pop-oriented album. This is largely due to Marcus Vest, who earns a production credit on nearly every song. His instrumentation is all stock sounds standing in the foreground, a bubble-rimmed artificiality heard often in early 2000s R&B: sweeps, fat synth plucks, the odd finger-picked bass, a melody so obvious no vocalist could veer away. When it doesn’t work, it really doesn’t work, like on “Lost Little Girl,” where a whiny reversed synth clanks against beeps and overzealous drum programming. Sometimes, though, Vest’s production and Ja’s approximated singing synergizes into something meaningful, like on “Never Again,” where Ja offers harrowing insights into his past life: “Never again would I run down a road so dark/Hoped to die, cross my heart/But the streets keep calling.” He’s not shouting or shoehorning melody where it doesn’t belong; he’s tapping into a bluesy reflection suited well to his abrasive singing, and he’s never sounded more vulnerable or honest.
Pain Is Love was Ja’s second and final No. 1 album, and perhaps the last time you could mention his name without also mentioning 50 Cent’s. It’s unclear how the beef between the two Queens natives began. Ja claims it started when he didn’t greet 50 at the “Murda 4 Life” video shoot; 50 alleges it began when one of his friends robbed Ja at gunpoint and stole his chain. Regardless of its origins, the rivalry quickly escalated. After a physical altercation at a club in Atlanta, Ja’s Murder Inc. affiliates allegedly stabbed 50 at the Hit Factory, a recording studio in New York. 50 dropped a slew of diss tracks taking aim at Ja’s street cred, labeling him as “soft” for singing and lambasting him for imitating 2Pac. With some of hip-hop’s most dominant forces—Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes—backing up 50, Ja could hardly hope to compete. He trotted out Black Child and Caddillac Tah, undeveloped Murder Inc. artists without solo careers; Hussein Fatal, a former member of Pac’s Outlawz crew; and, for a brief time, Jadakiss and Fat Joe, whose paper-thin alliance with Ja couldn’t stack up against the Shady/Aftermath industrial complex. Meanwhile, Ja’s disses flailed with nonspecific insults and hollow threats. The narrative cemented itself across hip-hop: Ja was an overly emotional, Pac-derivative fraud.
It’s hard to pinpoint an exact song or situation that crowned 50 Cent and G-Unit winners of the beef. But by 2003, 50 Cent was the most popular rapper alive—his debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, sold close to a million copies in its first week and pushed hip-hop’s mainstream further from crossover collaborations toward unrelenting gangsta rap. Ja’s credibility was so diminished that when Lyor Cohen tried to solicit Suge Knight and his rebranded Death Row Records to release Ja’s fifth album, Blood in My Eye, Knight declined. Upon its eventual release the album was a commercial and critical failure, and by its 2004 follow-up, R.U.L.E., Ja was barely hanging on to a career. He was up for more acting roles in Training Day and 2 Fast 2 Furious but lost them because, according to 2 Fast director John Singleton, “He was acting like he was too big to be in [it].” When federal agents raided the Murder Inc. offices and opened an investigation into the label’s involvement in drug trafficking, fraud, and money laundering, Def Jam opted not to renew Murder Inc.’s contract. Embroiled in drama and stained with shame, Ja took a hiatus from music, one from which he’d never fully return.
Ever since 50 superseded Ja in the hip-hop hierarchy and on the charts (“In Da Club” was exponentially more popular than any Ja Rule song ever was), Ja’s public reputation has continued to suffer. He served a two-year prison sentence for gun possession and tax evasion, co-founded the disastrous Fyre Fest, and went viral for an awkward halftime set at a Milwaukee Bucks game. While 50 has faded more profitably into post-rap entrepreneurship and celebrity, Ja’s remembered as if frozen in time—as a try-hard, a fake thug, a wannabe singer with little actual skill. 50 fueled and added to these narratives, but Ja’s hubris did him no favors. His dreams of being the next 2Pac thwarted his burgeoning legacy as a melodic rap icon, the natural precursor to genre-melders like Kanye West and Drake. But unlike Drake, Ja didn’t unabashedly commit to the bit, instead trying to compete with 50 in the gangsta rap arena, the chip on his shoulder ballooning with each failed diss. And, with time, his R&B-based songs began sounding cheeky rather than radical, like failed experiments from an artist still determining the scope of hip-hop’s sonic and emotional range.
In the 20 years since Pain Is Love dropped, hip-hop’s ethos has shifted. Street authenticity still matters, but it’s no longer an essential quality for a rapper to become commercially viable. The stigma that explicit emotionality and a dedicated female fanbase signaled weakness rather than savviness, or that singing and rapping broke some sacred social code, has waned. The modern male rap star can be multidimensional, his masculinity intact even when the music isn’t macho. You can see it in an artist like Lil Nas X, whose pop-rap fusion feels partially indebted to Ja. But Nas gleefully weaponizes controversy and subverts expectations of Black rap-adjacent performers; for Ja, during his prime, rejecting social attitudes about Black masculinity would have meant sacrificing everything: his pride, his past, his art, his career. As a result, Pain Is Love is an album trapped between sounds, genres, eras, and identities, a playful album that desperately wants to be taken seriously. It’s a shame: Playfulness flattered Ja far more than being a gangsta did, something none of us would realize until it was too late.
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